What’s The Difference In Power Between 14oz and 16oz Gloves?

Q: Hi, I was wondering what is the difference in power of 14 oz gloves vs 16 oz. What is acceptable for sparring and training? – Vy Nguyen

I’ll put it this way. I wouldn’t even spar with anything less than 16oz gloves. I don’t want to punch anyone with 14oz gloves on and I definitely don’t want to be punched by anything less than 16oz. In fact, there are some 16oz gloves like those Clito Reyes that I also wouldn’t want to be punched by since they offer less padding around the fist area than other brands. If you want to feel the difference in power yourself, just try both sizes on a stiff heavy bag and you will feel it right away. Unless you want less than 130lbs, stay away from anything less than 16oz.

A: The difference in the gloves is the amount of padding and protection for both your hands and the opponent you are punching at. Obviously a 16oz glove will offer more protection and therefore hit with much less power than a 14oz glove.

Save your hands and be kind to your opponent. My recommendation is to stick with 16oz minimum.

Same thing in Russia – every one wears 10-12 oz gloves, somebody don’t wear helmets. I think, it’s a legacy of the past system: amateur boxing was for the young guys, and they used same gloves for training and competitions. As for me, I started boxing in this year, at the age of 32 and weight of 75 kg. For a first time i used 10 oz. gloves, but now i switched to 16 oz. Titles.

sparring with 10ozHoly crap, 10oz for sparring! I’m amazed you guys don’t kill each other. 10oz for competition is understandable. As for 10oz or 8oz gloves for bagwork….my hands would never be able to take that abuse.

Well the gym I go to is pretty strict. 10 and 12 oz gloves are nowhere to be seen! lighter categories use 14 oz gloves and heavier ones use 16 oz. Even so, since the fight gloves are personally owned, some people turn up with gloves that have way-too-dense foam (heavy bag gloves or training gloves I suppose) or gloves that need some breaking in.

For sparring, the gym itself has a bunch of very soft 18 oz sparring gloves and those are literally pillows.

All this because in my gym we follow the white-collar boxing norms, since most of us are 30 something or pushing 30 corporate employees anyway and showing up for board-meetings with black-eyes just won’t do. I work in advertising and that’s a more relaxed atmosphere, but no employer wants you looking like a victim of office abuse.

it’s so much your own protection, but the respect towards who you’re sparring with as well.
think about it; heavier gloves with more padding will aid you in conditioning as well as protect your sparring partner from injuries.

it’s not so much your own protection, but the respect towards who you’re sparring with as well.
think about it; heavier gloves with more padding will aid you in conditioning as well as protect your sparring partner from injuries.

I’d say the answer to this question is quality rather than quantity. I’d rather spar with, and against, an opponent in !4 oz Winnings than someone in worn out ,or cheap, 16s. Even a $50 pair of IMF Tech sparring gloves in 14 oz would be far safer than a pair of 16s made by Pro Boxing Eqpt or most Everlasts.

Well when anybody mentions glove sizes…it’s automatically assumed that you’re using a quality brand. So you do have a point but then again, no serious fighter wastes time with the toy gloves. If someone says 16oz, it’s assumed that they mean QUALITY 16oz gloves.

I have been sparring since the age of 5, then was a member of boxing team for three years, have had lots of sparrings in boxing and MMA as well, but never ever sparred wearing anything bigger than 12 oz. That was a standard. And usually we would train and spar with 10 oz. But that was in former soviet union. In general, I like the idea of sparring with bigger gloves like 14 oz and 16 oz for heavyweights, but never had this chance before.

About two weeks ago my coach had me throwing hard compact punches at the heavy bag during the last 30 seconds of every round. About a couple days into this, when I try to punch the bag with power, the bones in my fist feel like they could shatter. It’s not too much pain, but enough where I don’t punch as hard.

Also my gym put out a brand new pair of 16 oz gloves and when I put these on they are tight around my fists in comparison to the used, more beat up ones.

I don’t know how the fitting should feel on boxing gloves. I’m 6’2 around 165lbs when I don’t do any form of muscle building workouts.

I use14 oz for sparring and 16 oz for bag work. I feel like when I used 16 oz for sparring my combinations and punches wasn’t as fluid because of the bulkiness and that caused me to develop bad habits in fights, but thats just me.

Johnny, What do you think about the Rival bag glove (RB50 Intelli-Shock compact bag glove) I understand that it is only 10 oz, is that too light or is it ok since it may be a better type of glove. I am also having problem finding any reviews on this glove other then the Rival web site.
I am training at 155 lb
Thanks

Man, here in Poland almost nobody has gloves bigger that 12 oz. 10 is probably the standard in most of the boxing schools here. I, however, decided to follow your advice and bought 14 oz. and I don’t regret it.

hello, in my gym in the uk, they say that if you spar with lighter gloves it will make you more tougher so we spa with any gloves we pick. one time i saw one person spar with 16oz and his opponets sparing with 8oz. however i use 14oz for sparring because i weight 120 pounds

Im 16 and 143 pounds (64kg) I always spar and train with 16oz. A lot of boxers I train with and spar against often use lighter gloves like 12oz 10oz and sometimes even 8oz so it does get annoying as they have a high advantage with their hand speed. When I do put on 12oz gloves (rarely) it feels so much lighter and easier to box so I would reccomend using heavier gloves for sparring and training so when your in a competition or bout it will feel easier and you will have an advantage.

I weigh 148 lbs and I’ve been using a 12oz pair as my standard training/sparring gloves but now I want to buy something heavier in order to improve punching power and speed. Most sources on the internet suggest 16oz for all training purposes and I had decided to buy a good pair. When I asked the guys at my gym, however, they almost laughed when I said I wanted to buy something so heavy. The guys I talked to were using 12oz and 10oz for both training and sparring (Reyes and Fairtex), and they were both at least 20 lbs heavier than me. They didn’t seem to think that wrist injury was an issue nor did they consider that heavier gloves would significantly improve your punching speed and simply thought that the lighter you are, the lighter your gloves should be. I was a bit puzzled. Now I’m thinking of getting 14 oz only for the purposes of fitting in (I don’t want to be fighting people with much lighter gloves). I should also mention that we only do controlled sparring sessions and that many people don’t even bother wearing headgear (something I’m totally against).

Long story short, given my body weigh and the attitude at my gym, do you think I should choose 14 or 16 oz? I’m going to order my new gloves from Thailand so I won’t be able to change them. My training consists mostly of hitting the mitts and controlled sparring (I don’t train on the heavy bag so often) while my main concern is to increase punching speed, power, and endurance but without affecting good technique (I heard people saying that heavy gloves tend to do so). Thanks in advance.

Your gym doesn’t wear headgear? I don’t know why you take those guys seriously. The only advice I can give you is what I recommend in my articles. If your decisions are partially influenced by the guys in your gym, then I imagine you might feel more comfortable getting something in between.

Headgear is not mandatory, not even on sparring days, and nobody really checks the gloves either. Eventhough I like the instructor, this might be the reason for me to goto another gym…

Thanks for the advice, I bought a pair of 14oz Fairtex and I’m loving them. People would say that heavier gloves prevent you from practicing good technique but I think it’s the opposite. With my older gloves I had to deliberately compromise the right technique in order to protect my wrists from getting injured, whereas with my new gloves I don’t have that problem.

I am happy that I remembered this website Expertboxing. Basically I was using fighting sports gloves that were 14oz for about a year heavily 5 times a week…. or maybe less than a year…… thought I shouldn’t use them till they’re done…. might as well t try something else and mix it up so I coyld still use the old ones and not break them down….. so I bought everlast protex2 gloves…. but this time it was 16oz….. I dont know…. they look good but there is no aound when I hit the heavy bag…. and it feels odd…. is thos because fthe glove is not good or is it becausr I got 16oz this time instead of 14….. I will buy some new gloves tomorrow… not sure wich ones cuz my hands are very small… my fight weight is 140 or 135…. so my question is….. is it the glove or the size of it that made me worse when doing bagwork….?

also what fgloves would you get if you were me…?. the 14 oz fighting sports gloves were perfect but dont want to vuy the sae gloves again…. only hurt my wrist once doing mitts with someone that wasnt doing it good while I threw a hook…

Thanks for the info I got anthor pair of cleto reyes 16 hybrids…. I feel like they are perfect for me…… also great vids on youtube….would be kool if you could do a day in the life of a amatwur boxer video maybe of one of your fighters… people including me like to see hiw other people train as far as managing their schedule and so on…..

We use 16 oz on guys around 100 lbs and up that are of age sparring meaning 15 years and older. Our Gym is in Dallas Texas. Bag work as well with 16 oz. I’ve seen guys get away sparring with 14 oz and weighing around 120 lbs against a 127 lb with 16 oz and believe me you can tell the difference between 14 oz and 16 oz. The lighter guy had an advantage with the lighter glove even 2 oz less. Punches quicker and more crisp. On another note I train with 16 oz Winning and funny thing is the left hand glove isn’t nearly as comfortable as the right hand. When you make a fist it reminded me of the first pair of everlast low tier gloves like carboard stretching against my middle and back hand. Hopefully they still need breaking in because they are too expensive for that feeling. I will tell you this. There isn’t a pair of gloves that fit more comfortable on my hand than Reyes. Beautiful padding and super easy to make a fist. Only thing is the padding on the outside is a bit more compact that Winnings. I’ve busted just about everyone’s nose with the Reyes on. When tournaments come around 10 oz are nothing after training with 16 oz. Grease lightning punches.

I like Title’s section of the website for “women’s boxing.” Yes, some of it is the pink stuff, but a lot of it is not… and some of the gloves are the same as those in the men’s sections. Perhaps I shouldn’t assume that if it’s in the women’s section, it’s been vetted for smaller hands, but I’d buy gloves from that section and take the chance. (And it means a lot to me that they don’t assume that all women want their gear pink, or that women need special girly gloves for our dainty little hands and our delicate little punches.)

The difference usually has to do with the size of the gloves. I would say women’s gloves are built for smaller hands but I do worry that they may not be as high quality as the men’s gloves or that there aren’t as many high quality options.

Being in Wales, our gym is quite safety conscious so all sparring is done with headgear and mouthguards – minimum. I use 16oz Twins for bag work and sparring (I’m 230lbs) but the long term benefits for hand speed and all round fitness is there to see. Much harder keeping your guard up with 16oz than 10/12oz!

Hey Johnny!
I have a question and I was hoping you could answer it…
I signed on Full Contact classes and we need box gloves for punching bags and training and stuff. I’m trying to find the right fit for me. I’m 5.10″ and I weight 165 lbs and I’m about to buy the Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves 14 oz but I don’t know if I should go with the 16 oz, I’m afraid that they may be too heavy for me.
Thanks!

Hi Johnny
Love the website – thanks for all the great tips. Just been watching a lot of the Commonwealth Games boxing in recent days and I’ve heard the commentators discussing the move to boxing without headgear. Barry McGuigan, former WBA featherweight champion said the reason the men’s competition has gone without protective headgear this time is because of recent medical evidence suggesting it did nothing to prevent serious brain injury and that there was even some evidence which suggested that it made it worse. Would love to know your opinion on this.
Rgds,
Sean

I do understand people’s frustration on glove choice because I have been on the
End of the stick where I have been sparring a
Opponent with 12 or less bit despite this I Alway recommend 16oz benefits you and opponent
(sort of if there not smashing you about with quick 10 or 12’s)
Don’t go any lower than 12s and head guards guys this is the hurt games.
Try to respect your stable mates best you can.

I’ve been on boxing workout training for a year now, I replaced my old Everlast gloves (12oz) to a new Fairtex gloves 12 oz. I now weigh around 112 lbs. Im 5’3. Is 12oz the right size? I noticed that fairtex has bigger room inside for my hands compared with everlast, do I still stick to 12oz or do I opt for a smaller size such as 10oz?

I’m looking at getting into boxing to lose weight and build muscle, along with self defence and my general interest in boxing 😀 I’m 16yo, weigh 95kg and are a large body frame size (does that matter?) can you recommend where to start?

Thought I’d leave a reply seeing as I bought two pairs of gloves with the help of this website (and others).

1st) 10 oz Winnings for heavy bag, mitts, drills and LIGHT sparring

Pros: Good protection and impact distribution. Padding cushion allows you to touch your opponent lightly without making contact with your knuckles; alternatively, can be used to develop good follow through technique without injuring yourself, which is the greatest advantage. Manufactured with the most supple and breathable materials. Gloves look and feel better than new a year after heavy use. I can go on and on.

Cons: They’re small! Larger gloves are desirable for protecting against serious punchers from welterweights and above.

Enthusiastically recommended.

2nd) 14 oz Fairtex Super Sparring gloves for light and heavy sparring

Pros: Lots of padding. Wide surface area to protect from incoming attacks. Good construction and materials. Feels good on your hand after with hand-wraps on after break-in period. Rigid design (can be a con).

Cons: Long break-in period. Rigid and stiff (can be a pro). Non-breathable materials (I perforated mine with a pin needle).

Would recommend.

Conclusions: 10 oz for mitts, bags, drills and very light sparring. 14 oz are good all purpose gloves for those weighing 130 or less. 18 oz gloves for heavy weights. 16 oz for everyone else.

I recommend Winnings if you’ve got the money, Twins or Fighting Spirits are also awesome. Official fight gloves are a whole different story.

A very good friend of mine recently ordered me a pair of Cleto Reyes gloves. I wanted 14oz but apparently when you order quality Mexican gloves you get the very opposite in Mexican service. The staff from title boxing sent 16oz gloves. I walk around at 67kgs, idk what to do. Should I send them back or train with 16oz???

You should keep them because training with a heavier sized glove will make your hand speed increase when you put on a smaller size. Good for sparring and heavy bag work too. But for mitts I would use light weight gloves.

I come from a Muay Thai background, and I always used to hit the bag with 6oz or 8oz gloves, and I’d spar with 8oz-10oz. I guess it all depends on the pace and intensity of the sparring sessions. The more diverse striking in Muay Thai buffers out the sheer number of punches one takes, and getting hit with shins, knees and all other stuff to the head sort of instils a mutual sense of respect for your sparring partners, and you both rarely go anywhere near 100% with anything but body shots.

I’m excited to starting boxing soon though, but I also do a lot of sparring with 4oz MMA gloves, but that’s out of the gym with friends. We don’t go ridiculously hard, but we do it for the “reality” aspect, since I also train MMA. I’m sure against any real boxers, with excellent hands, I would not want to be on the other end of anything lower than 10oz or even higher. I guess it’s the person that dictates the safety/use of the glove, not the glove itself. I wish there was a 4oz sized glove that has the padding effect of a 16oz haha….

I box in the amateurs in the u.k, I’ve trained in a few gyms and in the UK any decent gym you will be expected to wear 16oz for sparring unless you weigh less than I would say 60 k u can wear 14oz. I always see people trying to sneak 10oz or 12oz but they are normally inexperienced dough bags trying to gain an advantage. But heavy good quality gloves will build your muscle endurance and make you stronger, whilst improve your speed when using competition gloves which are 10oz or 12oz depending on your weight. I would recommend owning a 12oz pair aswell to do pad work on because constantly wearing heavy gloves will mess your timing up if you never wear 12oz, cuz u will not be used to the different speeds. When I’m on the pads with 16oz reyes I don’t feel as fluid so 12 oz would be better on pads, 16 oz for everything else. Cleto reyes are the best, uncomfortable at first but once broken in are hands down the best gloves.

16oz reyes have enough padding they just don’t feel like pillows like winnings, so when people say they have less padding they are comparing them to winnings or grants. But compared to a typical 16oz glove that cost $50 they feel a lot heavier and have sufficient padding. I own a pair of 16oz reyes and they feel twice as heavy as my 16oz excalabers. So I would say unless you are sonny liston or a 17st heavyweight 18oz are far to heavy. 16oz reyes are Guna be a lot safer than the sparring gloves most gyms have for fighters to use, mine feel a lot more padded cuz they are excellent quality, most typical gloves lose the padding in a matter of months with heavy use, reyes will last year’s. So yes compared to other top quality gloves the padding is thinner and more square, but still decent enough for sparring, and proberly more padded and heavy than your average boxer that has cheaper gloves, so go for the 16oz gloves. They are heavy enough 18 oz for me would be so heavy I couldn’t get any shots off. I’m 154pounds so it depends on your weight aswell. Go for 16 oz unless you are extremely strong heavyweight other wise you Guna get whooped in sparring all the time.

Thanks Johnny
There was a guy whom I fought and he’s gloves seemed to have almost no padding, I could feel his knuckles every time.
I never really knew anything about oz for gloves until now. been training with 12oz gloves for years and I didn’t know what oz my gloves were. I just saw the 12oz tag on my glove a min ago.
Now I’m gonna get some real light gloves and strat hurting people.
Time to pay back all the pain.
I do muay thai, so they guys I spar with are all too violent and deserve it, one guy tore my muscle apart in sparring when he could have not. the other broke my nose trice, when we were supposed to take it easy on each other.
I owe them some broken bones…

What gloves should I but oz wise I’m a school kid and love boxing I use my big bros gloves they are 12 oz and very expensive now its time for me to get my own pair but I don’t want to get like three pairs just one that’s in between so I can use em for everything

When I started to go to the boxing gym they made me buy 10 oz gloves.
At the beggining I hadn’t a lot of problems because I hadn’t much power, but I started going 6 months ago and I think my right hand knuckles are starting to take too much punishment.
I’m 6’2″, 165 pounds when I’m lean, should I buy 16 or 18 oz gloves?

I weigh the same as you at 6″2. I use 14oz Winning and C17s for both training and bag work. I used 16oz Reyes’ for a while they were a bit wee bit much for sparring, even with knuckle guards I was pissing people in the gym. The 14oz are softer on my partners and kinder on my hands.

Lol,I leave in China and here everybody pretends to be a tough guy and they wear no helmet and 10/12 oz for sparring … Saw some “accidents” bloody noses and chipped teeth for nothing. I still don’t understand why they keep on destroying their hands on the bag with the cheapest gloves I have ever seen.

Ok, ok. 16oz is GOOD for very casual boxers, who want to get the thrills of sparring without any risk and whose technique isn’t very dangerous to start with. For the “weekend 16oz warriors”, ok.

However, if you want to be a serious boxer, you need to spar with at maximum 12oz, and ideally 8oz. Your bag work should be done exclusively in thin bag gloves with as little padding as possible.

Explanation:
With 16 or 14oz, the gloves are simply too big. They can allow you to have a sloppy guard. They cover more holes. It is easier to sneak in punches with smaller gloves – FACT. You don’t need near as much defensive work with the 16oz.
Furthermore, 16oz cause a lack of punch feedback, sometimes you can’t even tell if you hit, because of the excessive padding, so you tend to *hit harder* with 16oz. You control yourself less. Ad to that, the excessive weight (nearly half a kilo) of the glove causes accumulative brain damage, despite not causing bruises.
16oz block your vision. 16oz make clinches harder. 16oz drag your arms down, decreasing your defense…
The use of 16oz gloves for sparring, has FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED boxing. It has created its own set of strategies and techniques in order to dominate 16oz-sparring bouts! At that change is a change for the worse. Angles and footwork are decreasing – the holes to exploit in 8oz aren’t there in 16oz. Over-reliance on glove protection has decreased defensive skills. Big gloves let fighters get away with poor punching technique that would shatter their fists and wrist in 8oz.

That is why I rest my case.
There is no good reason to use 16oz, ever, if you are a serious fighter. 16oz will ruin your boxing.

HOW to practice safely in 10oz/8oz?
CONTROL YOURSELF. You need to learn how to play tag. And approach the fundamental skills as a positional game. If you know you landed the punch, there is no reason to have any power behind it. If you can’t control yourself, you have no business training serious boxing yet. If you can’t control exactly how much power you choose to give your shots, you are a poor boxer.

If you are a serious pro. Every month you should have a hard (but still controlled) sparring session with someone you trust… and just get hurt. There is no way around it. But you will notice that it really isn’t all that bad and that strangely, you might get fewer headaches. You will also be more cognizant of the areas you need to work you defense on, as you will have clear feedback of the punches landed.

Why use small bag gloves/8oz only for bag work?
Because if you use big gloves to hit a bag, you will never learn how to hit correctly (I see people hitting hooks with their fingers all the time…). You will also never condition your fists, which will give you lots of breakages down the road.
In some countries, where boxers use gardening gloves to hit the bag, they can literally punch through bricks, karate-style. I think it is unlikely these people will have brittle hands any time soon.
In Kickboxing you can condition your shins by hitting the bags, provided you do not wear shin pads. There is no reason why fists can’t undergo the same treatment (in fact, old boxers of the 1700’s, like Tom Cribb, where said to have exceptionally conditioned knuckles to the point they could hit bark off a tree). NOTE: I said to use light gloves, not “no gloves”, fists are a little bit more fragile than shins yes. But still, I have reached a level where I can easily hit the hardest bags bareknuckle. I can do the brick-punching trick. I never broke my hand, and I think I never will.

For all these reasons…

If you want to up your game, and become more than a mediocre 16oz-warrior boxer…
Ditch the 16’s, embrace the 8’s.

“Furthermore, 16oz cause a lack of punch feedback, sometimes you can’t even tell if you hit, because of the excessive padding… ”

– Is this a joke? Who are you sparring and what gym is this? I have never heard of even average amateur boxers not able to hurt each other with 16oz. Crazy. Good luck sparring regularly with 8oz on. You’re likely to cut each other or break your hand on someone’s elbow. I’m awfully curious to see what gym out there is sparring with 8oz. I seen several hundred pros and not a single one of them messing with that in sparring.